Europe seeks to increase deportations as some nations embrace Trump-like tactics

BRUSSELS — The European Union is expanding its powers to track, attack and deport migrants to “return centers” in third countries in Africa and elsewhere, quietly adopting Trump administration tactics that have drawn public criticism across the 27-nation bloc.

The EU continues to tighten its migration policies after right-wing parties took power in some countries in 2024. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People’s Party coalition, said the new measures would prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis sparked by Syria’s civil war, when around a million people arrived seeking asylum.

“We have learned lessons from the past. And today we are better equipped,” von der Leyen said. The new policies, known as the Migration and Asylum Pact, come into force on June 12.

Far-right parties in Europe have welcomed US President Donald Trump’s expulsion policy and called on the EU to adopt a similar approach. Human rights groups warn that authorities are already illegally pushing back migrants at EU borders and weakening their legal protections.

Italy provides a model

The EU already spends millions of dollars to deter migrants before they reach its shores and has supported tens of thousands of Africans returning home, either voluntarily or by force.

What is being considered today is an expansion of what Italy created under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her “tough on immigration” stance. It manages two detention centers for rejected asylum seekers in Albania. One of them is currently housing at least 90 migrants, said lawmaker Rachele Scarpa, who said she found people confused and scared during a recent visit.

Additionally, Meloni’s cabinet approved an anti-immigration program that would allow the Navy to detain ships in international waters for up to six months if they are considered a threat to public order; return intercepted migrants to their country of origin or to third countries; and expedite the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes.

An “informal group” of EU countries, including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece, are seeking deals on deportation centers, said Bernd Parusel, a researcher at the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies.

Kenya is one of the countries they are talking to, said Tineke Strik, a Dutch member of the European Parliament. Whether consciously or not, the plan is similar to deals Trump made with countries like El Salvador to take in deported migrants, she said.

Other countries are exploring similar ideas. Sweden’s migration minister said the conservative ruling coalition approved the creation of centers outside Europe, particularly for Afghan and Syrian asylum seekers.

Some in Europe applaud Trump-style tactics

During the Winter Olympics in Italy, protests erupted over the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security for the American delegation. But others in Europe have praised ICE’s actions and called for the creation of police units specializing in deportations.

The EU border service, Frontex, began sending agents on raids with Belgian police in 2024 to arrest and deport migrants. It is not clear whether this is the case in other countries.

The European Commission has declined requests for a position on US federal immigration policy.

In Britain, which left the EU several years ago, the center-left Labor government has made tackling illegal immigration a major priority.

The Interior Ministry said in February that nearly 60,000 people had been deported since the government was elected in July 2024. It said 9,000 people working without permission had been arrested in 2025, an increase of more than half from the previous year.

Pushbacks, raids and surveillance increase

Under the principle of non-refoulement provided for by European and international law, a person cannot be returned to a country where they would be persecuted.

But EU immigration control tactics include so-called pushbacks, in which people trying to enter the EU are forced across a border without access to asylum procedures.

European authorities carry out an average of 221 pushbacks per day, according to a February report from a group of humanitarian organizations. More than 80,000 pushbacks were recorded in 2025, the report said, mainly in Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia.

“Men, women and children, including those in critical health conditions, are routinely subjected to beatings, attacks by police dogs, forced stripping, forced river crossings and theft of personal belongings,” according to the report.

European agents brutalize migrants, just like in the United States, said Flor Didden, a migration policy expert at the Belgian human rights group 11.11.11. Some, like in Greece, even wear masks.

“The images are shocking and the outrage is justified,” he said of the United States. “But where is this same moral clarity when European border authorities abuse, steal and leave people to die?”

Europe offers even more protections to migrants

The groups also recorded an expansion of surveillance technologies such as drones, thermal cameras and satellites to monitor people on the move.

Other human rights groups warn of a weakening of legal protections.

New EU migration regulations allow for more police raids on private homes and public spaces and increased use of surveillance and racial profiling, says a letter to European institutions in February from 88 nonprofit groups, including the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants.

“We cannot be outraged by ICE in the United States while supporting these practices in Europe,” said the platform’s director, Michele LeVoy.

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Olivia Sundberg Diez, EU migration advocate with Amnesty International, said Europe offers more protections to vulnerable migrants than the United States, but shares much of the political momentum for tougher policies.

“There is a level of independence of institutions and courts and respect for human rights in Europe that you cannot ignore,” she said. “But the fundamental political impulse is the same, and I fear the human consequences are the same.”